


Ghost Story

by water_bby



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-08
Updated: 2011-01-08
Packaged: 2017-10-15 21:54:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/165294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/water_bby/pseuds/water_bby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Wild Hunt is just a story to frighten children with, right?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ghost Story

Iruka groaned quietly as he rolled out of his sleeping blankets. Middle of the night watches followed by early mornings were always hard at first, but a strong cup of coffee and ten minutes of riding herd on Naruto and the other boys at the swimming hole would take care of any lingering sleepiness. He nudged the boys still asleep awake and sent those already up out to get a bite to eat. When he finally made it out of the tent to his cup of coffee, he'd amended his earlier thought—just getting the boys out of the tent had finished waking him up!

It took the kids over an hour to prepare for the day's planned activity, day-long hikes for small groups. Iruka looked at his group, handed Sakura the map that showed their planned route, and then ordered them to move out as quietly as possible, a request that kept Naruto and Sasuke's running argument to normal voice levels rather than screaming, which Iruka counted as a victory. As the hike continued, the kids grew quiet on their own, marveling at the plants and the occasional glimpses of the animals they saw. Maybe, Iruka thought, it wouldn't be such a bad day after all.

He'd worried about it the previous night, when the children had started trying to out-do each other with ghost stories around the campfire.

"How about a real ghost story? Does anybody have a real ghost story?" Naruto had demanded.

"Iruka saw the Wild Hunt, once," Kotetsu had offered. "Get him to tell you about it."

"Really? Oh, please tell us about it, Iruka-sensei!" Sakura's request was echoed by the other children.

"OK, but only if you all agree to go to bed after I'm done." It wasn't really that scary a story, or, at least, it didn't have to be. He made eye contact with each of the children gathered around the campfire and began.

"When I was about your age, my parents woke me up in the middle of the night and told me to go to the caves where children and the elderly hide during great storms. I didn't understand why, but I knew that I needed to do what my parents told me to do." That was a lie, and he could feel Kotetsu and Izumo smirking at him—they both knew that he'd asked why, at some volume, as his parents pushed a pack of supplies at him and then armed themselves. But if Iruka had to tell this story to these children, he was going to get in every potentially helpful lesson he could, and obeying adults for one's own safety was one he regularly tried to teach.

"So I was running toward the caves when I heard dogs howling, baying, really, like hunting dogs on the trail of a fox, and they sounded very, very near. I shifted to move away from them when I saw that buildings in the village were burning. I stopped, trying to decide what to do next, when I saw someone running away from the village and toward me." And that was another lie. He'd actually started back toward the village, already angry at his parents for sending him away rather than letting him help and nervous because he knew that no one would be hunting in the dark, so it had to be a wild pack.

"And behind him came the Hounds of the Hunt, their cries softening as they approached where I stood." And that had been the eeriest thing of all, that as they came nearer, the volume lessened rather than growing, so that at the point they were rushed by him, there was no sound at all.

"The man ran right at me, but just before he reached me, the Hounds were upon him, knocking him to the ground between one footfall and the next." And that was his third lie of the night, for the man had, in fact, reached boy-Iruka, grabbing him up with a knife to his throat as the man whirled to face the pack.

"And then the Rider came, on a big white horse, and he called the Hounds back from the body, nodded to me, and they all left, as if they'd turned to mist." It was an image that Iruka could not erase from his mind. The flames of the buildings burning made the white horse and the white-clad rider a big dark shadow while the pack circled Iruka and the man who held him. Iruka knew that he'd been staring, his mind looping between thinking about whether he could loosen the man's hold if he could just get both feet on the ground and worrying that even if he did escape that hold then he'd still be surrounded by the pack. And then the pack had moved in for the kill, one of them crushing the wrist of the hand holding the knife, another biting into the arm around Iruka's waist, and others ripping at the man's vulnerable legs. As the Hounds moved, so did the Rider, moving the horse close enough to lean down and pull Iruka on to the horse. Iruka had tried to get away, but the Rider simply rearranged his hold.

"So I ran on to the caves and later discovered that the man was one of those who set the fires in the village." He'd actually been let down from the horse in a clump of bushes just out of sight of the caves, and he'd been both scared and excited when he'd told his story to Kotetsu and Izumo. But the next day's bright morning had begun with the news that his parents were dead, killed in a burning building as they tried to rescue those trapped inside.

"And now, go to your tents!"

"Ah, Iruka-sensei, that wasn't very scary!" Naruto had complained as he moved towards the large tent he shared with a number of the other boys.

"You...you didn't really meet the Rider once, did you?" Sakura's soft question was hard to hear over the noise the others made as they left the circle around the fire.

"No, I didn't meet the Rider once."

Her face indicated that had been the right answer.

But this morning was bright, even in the forest, and last night's ghost stories were but a memory. After only a few hours' walk, they stopped for lunch by a swiftly flowing stream.

Iruka motioned for his students to stand still. There was a human footprint by the edge of the water which had to belong to someone still within hearing distance. "Sakura," he whispered, "show me any caves marked on the map. Sasuke, Naruto, keep an eye out for people." The children might be a handful when they were in safe, familiar territory, but they obeyed nearly instantly, catching Iruka's own disquiet. Sakura showed him two possible caves, and Iruka chose the smaller one. It looked less defensible, and it was too small for a group of adults, so there was less chance they'd arrive to find the cave already occupied.

They'd nearly made it when the first of the bandits came at them out of the trees, coming up behind Iruka to disable the adult first. Iruka let reflexes take over, pulling the first of his knives out as he parried the bandit's blow, and shouting at Sakura to get the other children away. By the time he'd knocked the bandit down, the kids were out of sight. Iruka followed as quickly as he could, hoping that someone had heard him. He caught up to his students as two more bandits cornered the children in the cave; Sasuke had planted himself in a defensive position that could easily become offensive, while Naruto lashed out at one of the men who managed to get a hand on Sakura's pack. The man let go of the girl to throw a punch at the boy. Iruka threw himself between the man and Naruto, turning so he faced their attackers as yet more bandits, including the one he'd injured earlier, emerged from the woods.

"You can't keep us all off, you know, even if you are pretty good with your knife, teacher. Just let us have the brats, and maybe you'll make it out of this alive."

Iruka sneered. "You get them over my dead body."

And then the forest rang with the baying of hunting hounds. A baying which quickly softened, making the bandits, who had startled at the first call, relax.

"Well, whoever's out hunting isn't coming this way, so you'll get no help from that quarter, dead man."

Iruka smiled back at the bandit, the smile of a hunting dog upon cornering a particularly troublesome pest. "The Hounds grow quieter as they approach, don't you know that? No, of course not, for few hear and see the Wild Hunt and live to tell about it. Children, you need to get as far back as you can and close your eyes."

The first rush came from the large black dog that leapt from the ground above the cave into the line of bandits, knocking over the bandit who had been facing Iruka. And then the area before the cave exploded with bandits and dogs.

Iruka moved as far into the cave entrance as he could, in case one of the bandits tried to escape the Hounds by moving that way. Mostly though, they tried for the narrow trail back to the more established paths at the ridge or the stream bed. He noticed that those who escaped the dogs that way came running back, looking like they'd seen something even more frightening than the dogs that knives passed right through but whose teeth tore into human flesh as if sharpened knives themselves.

"Iruka-sensei!"

"Naruto, I told you to stay back and shut your eyes." They didn't need to see this.

"But you're bleeding! Sakura, do you have the first aid kit?"

"Not now, Naruto!" But Iruka could hear the rustle as all the kids moved to get a better look at his back and what was going on before the cave. He twisted his head to glare at them, "Look, you don't need..."

At that point, Iruka simply stopped trying, because a moment of utter stillness had come over both the children and the bandits. Iruka turned back to see what was going on. At the edge of the small clearing before the cave, where the narrow path emerged from the forest, stood a tall, white horse, its sides barely moving as it breathed, as if it had simply ambled in from its pasture. On its back was a man dressed all in white, from the cloth that covered his nose and mouth to his leather riding boots, one eye gleaming white in the dappled sunlight while the other glowed red and black. And in his hand was a sword made of lightning. For one long breath, nothing happened, and then the horse and rider were among the last of the bandits, sword flashing as each bandit was killed by Hounds or Rider.

When the last bandit lay quiet on the forest floor, Iruka straightened in the cave entrance. One of the Hounds raised his muzzle from the throat of the man who had fought with Iruka on the way to the cave and swung his head toward Iruka and the children, nostrils flaring.

"Iruka-sensei, you're still bleeding!" Naruto insisted, and the Hounds moved swiftly toward the cave entrance, while the Rider leapt from his saddle to follow them.

"I'm fine!" Iruka shouted. "Would you all stop worrying about me?"

"But Iruka-sensei...!" Naruto protested, while the other children murmured their own complaints and the Hounds snuffled softly as they formed a semi-circle around him.

The Rider, however, simply wrapped his hands around Iruka's forearms. "Iruka, we'll stop worrying when your wounds have been seen to."

For two breaths, Iruka glared at the taller man before sighing deeply. "Fine. Let me go so I can take my jacket off."

The hands left his arms only long enough for Iruka to unfasten his jacket. As soon as the jacket was hanging free, the hands were back, turning Iruka around so the Rider could see his back as his jacket was removed.

"I am old enough to undress myself, you know," Iruka muttered.

"But apparently not old enough to appreciate help, hmm? You can't fix this by yourself." There was a pause as the cut across Iruka's back became more visible. "Are we treating this here or at home?" The teasing voice flattened, the question not a jibe but a true inquiry.

"I can't leave my students, Kakashi."

"Then here it is. Where are your supplies?"

"Sakura has the first aid kit!" Naruto answered, seemingly unfazed at having had one of last night's ghost stories come to life. "She's really good at first aid, too!"

Kakashi smiled at him. "Then I will be glad of her help."

Iruka glared at the other man and the blond boy before turning his attention to the girl who was staring at him with trembling lips. "Sakura, could you bring the first aid kit over here, please?"

She sidled over, quick glances at the Rider betraying her nervousness as she got closer, and then met Iruka's eyes. "You lied to me, Iruka-sensei. You told me you hadn't met the Rider."

"Actually, I said I hadn't met him once, Sakura. We've been...friends...since the night of the fire." Iruka smiled at her. "The truth can be the best lie. Remember that."

**Author's Note:**

> Written for troublesome_jv for the Winter 2010 round at [kakairu_fest](http://community.livejournal.com/kakairu_fest/)
> 
> There are many versions of the Wild Hunt in European folklore. The Hounds here are particularly influenced by the Welsh Cwn Annwn.


End file.
